Lifeguards Living in Style

 As we finish up our fabulous summer of 2022, I am asking how much time did you spend at the beach, in the water, or just lying in the sunshine? I know I was grateful to splash in the splendor of Presque Isle watching an open-sky sunset. I was calmed by some serene kayaking on our Twin Cities Lakes. And also able indulge on floating in the lovely Chippewa River on a raft with a sweet summer cocktail. Nothing beats any stretch where sand meets the shore.

I was recently made aware of the exotic lifeguard huts of Miami Beach - as predictable as one would expect. Bright, splashy and unique as one would assume them to be - and then more. I had visited the upscale esplanade a few years back. At that point I was taken more with the fetching art deco designs of the buildings along the boardwalk & the neon lights. For some reason I didn't notice a one of these special huts.

History: Credit and kudos needs to go to William Lane Architects. The whole project started back in 1995 after Hurricane Andrew decimated the shores of South Beach. At that point they designed 5 towers to replace damaged ones. But it was in 2015, that the firm came up with the concept of 36 glorious lifeguard huts all based on 6 blueprints and really made a statement. They are the perfect symbiosis of Art Deco, Latin influence and whimsical Florida colors.

They remind me of the mythical treehouse or clubhouse I was always trying to create as a child with leftover lumber and abandoned gallons of pastel paints. In addition to the photos posted, there is a link to their firm's design page which shows the layout of each of the 6 prototypes. Worth the visit to the beach themselves. The hunks of Baywatch never had anything like this!

William Lane Architects; beach houses

In a Galaxy, Far Far Away

With all the recent images from the James Webb Telescope, there is a new sense of wonder and excitement about what lies beyond... Surprisingly, it is not generating a lot of conversation to the undeniable aspect of Climate Change here on our home planet. Days of interplanetary travel like on Star Trek or Guardians of the Galaxy are literal years away. But no longer is it beyond our comprehension.

I tagged this post from SciTech Daily over 2 years ago. It notes a study from Washington State University. It sparked my interest for sharing again because of the collision of the above two topics; Solar Systems and Global Warming. The article is above my pay grade with terms like habitable zone. It points out a Top 24 listing of planets out there that might sustain life. It does get a bit vague on if that means human life as we know it, or just some sort of "life" other than ours. It seeks to find what other factors both different and alike might exist that could also support living organisms.

Apparently the Sun in our Solar System has a relatively low life expectancy of only 10 billion years, of which 4 billion have already passed. So our capacity for existing is already entering our elder lifespan! Yikes. Not that we can even comprehend what the next 6 billion years might hold - good or bad. Climate change may cut those billions in half?

The article throws around other terms like dwarf stars (which would be cooler systems than our hot sun), geothermal heat and geomagnetic fields. Somehow scientists have put all these elements together to come up with this so-called habitable zone. Apparently we are shopping for something with more land mass, more actually density which would reinforce its gravity and certainly a key element - water in some form of clouds, moisture or humidity.

So on our listing of 24 possible planet choices, none of them meet ALL of our criteria. But one checks 4 specific characteristics. So there are remote chances that we could move humankind to a distant planet in a far far galaxy. It boggles the mind and is certainly not going to happen in this lifetime. To Infinity and Beyond!

SciTech; 24 Planets